Part 28 (1/2)

Kill Me Again Rachel Abbott 82790K 2022-07-22

'You mean she was worse than this? Jesus.'

She noticed a plastic-wrapped pack of water bottles. At least they hadn't intentionally dehydrated the woman, but she was too ill to move and could never have torn open the plastic.

'Let me go,' Maggie said, lifting her hand to her hair and tugging it away from Samil's fist. 'Let me see to her. I won't try to run.'

To her amazement, he did what she asked.

'You won't run. I know that. I'm standing here, not two metres from you. And anyway, somebody's coming to see you.'

'Who? What do you mean?'

He said nothing and Maggie couldn't worry about that. She needed to help this woman. She took off her coat and suit jacket and untucked her silk blouse. Turning away from the man, she removed her blouse and quickly put her outer clothes back on, b.u.t.toning her coat tightly.

She wasn't strong enough to rip the material so she poured some water onto a sleeve and bunched it up, placing it between the woman's lips. She didn't think it was wise to pour cold water directly into her mouth, and anyway she was lying on her side. Maggie dampened another part of the blouse and used it to gently wipe the woman's face, trying to cool her.

She wanted to make her more comfortable, but then saw how her arm was stretched above her head and the sorry state of her wrist. The ma.s.sive swelling almost hid the sutures, but Maggie could see the other end of a plastic tie attached to a chain round one of the pillars.

She glanced up at Samil. 'You animal.' He was unmoved, and she tried not to think what he might have in store for her.

'Enough,' he said, his face set into hard lines. Maggie would never forget this man's face. His name didn't matter. She was certain she was never getting out of here, but would find him if ever she got the chance.

He pulled Maggie up by her hair again. Extracting another long plastic cable tie from his coat pocket he pushed Maggie hard up against a metal pillar and told her to put her arms behind her. She did nothing. He lifted her off the floor by her hair, thousands of follicles screaming as they bore the weight of her body.

'Put your f.u.c.king arms around the pillar.'

She would have liked to defy him again, but she was certain he wasn't going to stop hurting her until she did what he said and she didn't have the strength to resist.

He secured the plastic tie. 'Now I would gag you, but you could scream forever here and n.o.body would hear you, so I won't bother.' He turned and walked back towards the doorway to the stairs.

Where was he going? Why was he leaving them?

Maggie tried to comfort the woman. 'It's okay. We're going to get out of here. People are looking for you.'

The woman didn't move. Maggie could see her mottled face and knew she didn't have long.

'There's a policeman. They say he's really clever. Tom Douglas, he's called. He'll find us.'

Maggie was amazed to see the girl's eyelids flutter open for a second, and she was certain that she saw hope in her eyes. Whether that was true or not, it was better that the girl died with hope in her heart.

Maggie stopped talking. She could hear voices. Samil was coming back, and he had somebody with him, somebody who clearly didn't want to be there. And it was a voice she recognised.

Samil kicked the door open and pushed a man in front of him into the room, his hands also tied behind his back.

'Duncan!' Maggie gasped. How on earth had they found him? She must have been followed the previous night. Surely not? There had been n.o.body about the roads were empty but how else could they have known where he was?

Duncan looked at her, his face showing no surprise that she was there. His features were set into hard lines as if he was sucking in his cheeks. His eyes were dark and unreadable.

Samil pushed him across the room until he was standing a few feet from Maggie.

'Maggie, meet Michael. He's a man of many names, aren't you?' he said, prodding Duncan hard in the back. 'I knew him as Senka online. I bet you didn't know that, did you, Maggie? Senka means ”shadow” in some foreign language or other. So to me he was Senka, then I saw him in the newspaper and discovered his name was Michael, and now it's Duncan. I'm sure he must confuse himself with all these names.'

Duncan continued to say nothing. He didn't look at Maggie, but stared into an empty s.p.a.ce in the room, his eyes blank.

Samil lifted his right leg and put his foot against Duncan's back. He pushed him towards Maggie and walked across to a bag in the corner. He pulled something out, and Maggie recognised it instantly. A taser. Samil could keep his distance and still control Duncan. Maggie and the girl Leo, he had said her name was were restrained by the pillars.

Samil pulled a mobile phone out of his pocket.

'I gather your husband gave you a flavour of what he set up all those years ago those a.s.sa.s.sinations. No doubt he told you how innocent he was. Do you want me to read you some of the messages he wrote on the website, Maggie? Do you want to know what he fantasised about doing to the girl who had betrayed him?'

Duncan turned his head. He said nothing, but the look he gave Samil was full of hatred. Samil ignored him and consulted the screen of his phone.

'Let me see.' Samil flicked his finger up the screen a couple of times. 'Ah, here we are. It appears your husband wanted his ex-girlfriend drowned. That was his method of choice. He wanted her head held under, then pulled out when she was almost unconscious, and then pushed under again. He wanted that repeated until finally her strength ebbed from her body. I didn't do that. It was too messy and would have taken too long. But that was his fantasy. I would have slit her throat, like the first one, but in the end she was strangled. Bad, but not as bad as what your husband had planned.'

Maggie felt hot tears streaming down her face. This wasn't Duncan he was talking about; it was somebody else.

'You see, Maggie ' Samil's voice was tight as if he could only just resist the urge to shout and scream, ' what that girl did to your husband was nothing. It was a blip in his life. His failure to stick to his side of the bargain, to kill my stepmother before she got her hands on my father's money, has condemned me to a life of penury. Oh, I have enough to live on, but I should have been so very, very rich. And your husband ruined that for me. That's why I've brought him here. I'm going to condemn him for the rest of his life to something that's possibly even worse.'

What could he mean? There was no point in asking. Samil seemed to be in a different place. His pupils had dilated and his eyes looked fierce and black, the words spat from his mouth with venom.

'He has to make a choice. He has to kill that's only fair given what I did for him but I'm going to let him choose. He can kill you, Maggie, or he can kill Leo. That's an easy choice, really. She's almost dead anyway. But you see, you're going to have to watch him do it. You're going to have to listen to her scream. And then if you stay with him, every day for the rest of your lives you will picture him killing an innocent woman because she had the misfortune to look like you.'

Still Duncan didn't speak. He kept his hate-filled eyes on Samil, and never looked at Maggie.

'Don't do it, Duncan,' she begged. 'He can't make you.'

'Of course I can make him.' Samil spat the words out. 'I'll start carving chunks out of you until he agrees. It looks like an easy choice, but it's not. Think about it.'

He said no more. He didn't need to, but Maggie had heard enough. She remembered one of the articles she had read about psychopaths. Control was everything, so she had to break it destroy Samil's confidence. As a psychopath, he was a master manipulator of other people's feelings, but was unable to experience emotions himself. She knew she wouldn't be able to make him feel guilty, but she could belittle him. And psychopaths were planners and hated their plans to be upset or derailed. That was what she had to do. Maggie took a deep breath.

'What sort of a man are you, Samil? Oh, I know. The sort that has to hide behind a pathetic fake name. The Angel of Death?' She barked out a laugh, and hoped Samil didn't hear the terror hovering just below the surface. 'For G.o.d's sake, you sound like a character out of a children's comic. I've no doubt you're an evil b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Let's face it, you've killed enough innocent women. But what do you get off on? That's what I can't work out. From what I can gather you're not getting any s.e.xual gratification out of your kills. Or is that it? Is thinking about the deaths of these women at your hands the only way you can get it up? Or is it the thrill of the kill? Well, I've got news for you. Your plans are going to fail. It's all going to go wrong, Samil, and you will be exposed for the pathetic specimen you are.'

She had to stop before her voice cracked with the strain of trying to sound strong. She swallowed and fought to hold her gaze steady. She had done her best, but her outburst hadn't produced any signs of the confusion she had tried to create. All she saw was a slight narrowing of Samil's eyes.

'Maybe I have a better idea,' he said. 'You're a strong woman, Maggie, so maybe the choice of who dies should be yours. Duncan can kill Leo or kill you, or you can kill Duncan. But let's make this your choice let Duncan see what h.e.l.l he has brought into your life. Remember, Maggie, your husband has fantasised about killing. Maybe he still does have you thought of that? Maybe if we search the site to find someone who fantasises about drowning people slowly that fantasist could be Duncan.'

The back of Maggie's neck tingled with a memory and she turned her head to look at Duncan. He didn't return her stare, but the fury in his eyes as he looked at Samil was chilling.

'Don't be ridiculous,' he said, s.p.a.cing out each word. 'I was never serious. You're the psychopath, the thrill killer. Not me.'

Samil turned back to his phone. 'Well, we'll see, shall we. There are some wild fantasists on this site and yes, the site's still going, Maggie. The numbers swell year on year. This one that I'm looking at right now wants to kill all lesbians. A mission killer. They're so interesting, like Peter Sutcliffe and the prost.i.tutes. Or Carroll Edward Cole his mission was to kill women who cheated on their partners. I think you would be a mission killer, Michael. But what would you want to rid the world of? Any ideas, wife? We can search the site, and see if we can find any more of your husband's fantasies. What do you say?'

Maggie was silent. She wasn't sure her legs would hold her up for much longer. Samil stared at her for a few seconds longer, waiting to see if she responded. She didn't, and he appeared to become bored with the idea, sticking the phone back in his pocket.

He folded his arms and stared at Maggie, a small smile betraying his pleasure at the torment he was inflicting.

'Okay, Maggie, who's going to die here today? You, your husband or that poor sc.r.a.p of a woman who hasn't done a thing to hurt anybody?' He pointed his taser in Leo's direction. 'I want an answer. Or I'm going to start hurting people.'